Oprah: Making people see the cruelty of puppy mills
By Gina Spadafori
April 3, 2008
The preview for the Oprah puppy mill show is fantastic! Looks like she’s really going to expose these horrible puppy factories. Way to go!
Check it out and then tell us what you thought of the show after.
And add your favorite links to more information on this issue, too.
Here’s Oprah’s list of resources and here’s her message board link.
I won’t see the show for hours here on the West Coast, since it’s on just before the evening news in my area.
And in the credit where credit is due department, check out the resources at The Humane Society of the United States. They have always, always been in the forefront of investigating and exposing puppy mills, all the way back to a 1962 Life magazine expose — “Not Fit for a Dog.” In the 1980s, the courageous Bob Baker of the HSUS exposed puppy mills, leading to the passage of “puppy lemon laws” in many states.
The “you’re either with us or agin’ us” stuff that makes me crazy: John Yates, writing for the American Sporting Dog Alliance:
Dog owners might be in for another bashing on Friday, when ultra-liberal talk show host Oprah Winfrey does a special program on “puppy mills.” Winfrey’s star reporter, Lisa Ling, went undercover in commercial breeding kennels to do an expose on the pet store trade.
Although the commercial trade in pet store puppies has nothing to do with the vast majority of dog owners and breeders, sensationalistic news coverage tars us with the same brush. To the liberal animal rights mindset, all breeders are either “puppy mills” or “backyard breeders,” and this always translates into more laws that harm only the innocent. Moreover, the hidden agenda of the animal rights movement is the ultimate elimination of animal ownership, and their strategy is to pick us off one group at a time.
Wow, here I am threatened by PETA one week, and calling BS on a hunting-dog advocacy group the next. I refuse to give puppy mills a free pass because I just happen to be on the same side as animal advocacy groups on this one. I want to see the end of commercial puppy factories. But I’m also against breeding bans, and I’m also against gun control.
Many animal activists do believe “a breeder is a breeder is a breeder” and that all are scum. But that has nothing to do with “liberals,” and I know all kinds of people who vote all kinds of ways on other issues who don’t understand the distinctions between a clueless, greedhead backyard breeder, a commercial puppy factory and reputable breeder.
Instead of slinging insults and jumping in bed with the puppy-millers, why not fight this battle with the truth?
If Oprah can keep some ninny from pulling out a credit card to get a puppy-mill purse dog, I’m all for it. And then those who believe in ethical, responsible breeding can make our own point.




Has Oprah fallen for the “a breeder is a breeder is a breeder and all are scum” lie?
Here’s yet another chapter in 